LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Empire Metals announced on Monday that recent metallurgical testwork at its Pitfield titanium project in Western Australia had yielded a high-purity titanium dioxide product grading 99.25%, with minimal impurities.
The AIM-traded firm said the results were achieved using conventional beneficiation and refining techniques, including flotation, acid leaching, and calcination, on concentrates from the project's weathered saprolitic cap.

It said the high-purity output was expected to be suitable for premium-grade titanium sponge metal and high-quality pigment applications.

Testwork was conducted at ALS Metallurgy in Perth and applied both direct acid bake and dilute acid pre-leach processes.

The company said the refining method, which involved converting titanyl sulphate to hydrated titanium dioxide and then calcining the material, produced a final product with non-detectable or extremely low deleterious elements.

Bulk samples had already been collected for further product generation and marketing purposes.

Empire said the results enhanced the commercial potential of Pitfield, which benefited from established infrastructure links, favourable logistics, and its location in a top-ranked mining jurisdiction.

The firm added that the findings demonstrated a strong foundation for future development and aligned with its strategy to position Pitfield as a major source of high-grade titanium feedstock.

"We have achieved an extraordinary outcome from our most recent product development testwork, which has delivered an exceptional high-grade, high-purity titanium dioxide product that should be ideal for either titanium sponge metal or high-quality titanium dioxide pigment production," said managing director Shaun Bunn.

"It is remarkable that our technical team has so rapidly produced a high-purity titanium dioxide product."

Bunn said the company believed that highlighted the effectiveness of the company's processing approach, and also underscored the potential value of the product.

"Metallurgical testing and process optimisation continues, and with the availability of the 70 tonnes of bulk sample collected in February we will now be able to significantly scale up the testwork and produce a variety of final product samples to share with prospective downstream end-users."

At 1547 BST, shares in Empire Metals were up 24.11% at 17.5p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

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